March 20, 2014
As soon as I decided to buy a Harley, a road trip was implied. I began planning the destination, departure time, duration, as well as all the little things down to a detailed packing list. I set this trip in motion before I even had my new bike. A Facebook event for SL,UT Riders was created, and Brad and Aric had already agreed to go.
We were leaving March 20th and I wanted to have plenty of time to put 1,000 miles on the new bike for its first maintenance before we left. I ended up riding it home on January 7th in 20-30 degree weather, and by the end of the month I had only racked about 100 miles. By the beginning of March, though, I had well over 1,000 miles and had my maintenance done.
March 20th was a Thursday, and it was in the low 50s. Brad met me at my house around noon. We met up with Aric about 20 minutes later at a gas station in Pleasant Grove. The three of us filled up our tanks and set out for St. George. We were on the road for about 75 miles before we pulled off for a pit stop.
We were all excited to be on the road together. Aric had experience with this kind of thing before, but this was Brad's and my first road trip on motorcycles. I was nervous about going the distance, but thanks to Hercules I pressed on. More so, I was nervous about my ass and wind speed causing my neck to get sore. I knew I could make it to St. George with no problems, but I was more concerned with an accumulative effect over the course of five days. After a couple pics, we jumped back on our bikes and pressed on.
Not 10 minutes later the three of us were pulled over for doing 94 MPH. It was a depressing way to start our trip, but I think we were all so excited for the next few days that we didn't care. We decided to take this photo while the cop wrote us up. Luckily, he gave all three of us warnings.
Around 5:30 we arrived in Kayenta where we stayed in a desert bungalow that a friend of my family owns.
With plenty of daylight left we decided to go hiking in nearby Snow Canyon and then grab dinner after. Snow Canyon happens to be a childhood camping spot for Brad, which we didn't know, and by happenstance it was only about 10 minutes away from the bungalow. We unpacked our things, shed some layers, and then left with Brad leading the way.
He took us farther in and led us to a campground his family used to visit like 20 years ago. There, we climbed rock formations until our boyish instincts were satisfied. From above we took photos of our bikes parked below.
After our decent we went back to the bungalow and dressed up for our ride to dinner in the cold. We ate some good food, and then loitered the streets of St. George for a bit. There were jokes and stories and we ended the night watching Fletch back in Kayenta.
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